Peacekeepers could be added to roll

CANBERRA: The Australian War Memorial is set to consider expanding the Roll of Honour to include peacekeepers, including a former Quirindi man killed in the Middle East more than 20 years ago.

The issue is to be discussed when the memorial’s council next meets.

The council’s chairman, retired Rear Admiral Ken Doolan, will table a petition on Monday calling for the names of 48 Australians killed in post-World War II peacekeeping and humanitarian operations to appear on the Roll of Honour, alongside more than 100,000 Australians killed in more than a century of conflict.

Rear Admiral Doolan accepted the petition from Avril Clark, whose son, Private Jamie Clark, died in the Solomons in 2005, and from Sarah McCarthy, whose father, Captain Peter McCarthy, born and raised in Quirindi, died in 1988 when his vehicle hit a landmine in southern Lebanon.

Under current rules, a deceased member of the Australian Defence Force can be included on the Roll of Honour if he or she died during, or as a result of, service classified by the Department of Defence as warlike.

That excludes most post-World War II peacekeeping and humanitarian missions.

The online petition, conducted through the change.org organisation, has so far attracted more than 17,800 signatures.

The petition says the policy of including only those who died in warlike operations came out of World War I, in an era when peacekeeping and humanitarian operations didn’t exist.

It says it’s time for 48 Australians to be rightly recognised for giving their lives in the service of this country and placed on the Roll of Honour.